Flinders Camp

The Flinders Ranges Camp travels through Hawker to Flinders Ranges National Park and on to Balcanoona.

We stay at Hawker Area School and on the way we visit an interesting museum in Port Augusta called Wadlata, where we find out about what it was like in the Flinders Rangers back in the old days and learn about the local Aboriginal group, the Adnyamathanha people.

Travelling through the Flinders Ranges, we visit places such as Yourambulla Caves, Arkaroo Rock and Wilpena Pound. We go on walks, one being part of the Heysen Trail and another that takes us through the Blinman water pools. We see Wildu (eagle), Euros, kangaroos, emus and wild goats. The walks take us four hours, hiking between mountains, over waterfalls and slippery, wet rocks. We also go on a tour down into the Blinman Mine, and walk around the historical cemetery where we have our lunch.

Bush camping at Willow Springs and Chambers Gorge we cook our own meals. We do art work in the creekline and look at the food trail. If weather permits we may climb Mt Chambers.

We travel to Balcanoona to camp, visit Echo Bend and perhaps have a swim in a freezing pool. We then do a Ridge Top tour at Arkaroola, on our return trip we travel through Nepabunna then back to Hawker.

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Flinders Camp was really fun and exciting. We got to do lots of things like hiking, camping, cooking, making new friends and learning about wildlife and Aboriginal history. We did lots of driving in the bus and saw a lot of interesting animals. We helped each other with putting up tents and swags. It was really comfortable sleeping in a swag, until the tarp fell off…

We did a 10km walk to a waterfall. On the way, we saw lots of interesting animals and plants. It took us about three hours to get there. Despite all the rain elsewhere, there was no water falling down the waterfall!

We missed out on some of the activities because of the rain, but we were still having fun. If it wasn’t for the change of plans we wouldn’t have met Mick McKenzie, an Aboriginal elder, who looks after Wilpena Pound. He told us the Dreaming story of how Wilpena Pound was made and took us to the homestead. We also went on a walk up to Arkaroo Rock to see the Adnyamathanha rock paintings. Learning about the Aboriginal history was fun and interesting to hear.

On the second to last night in Angorichina we were allowed to cook our own meals. Our group cooked baked potatoes, potato fries, eggs, sausages and chicken patties. Nobody got food poisoning, bonus! On the last night in Hawker we did a talent show. Everybody did a performance, and they were all very, very good. We packed everything and drove back to Victor the next day.